“I have been working with her. She’s the reason I’m involved in all this. But I’m not sure our interests are totally aligned.”
“Nothing in life is ever perfectly aligned. I worked with criminals to bring worse criminals down. I’m sure you did, too. Sometimes you just have to go for it and hope for the best. Trust people not based on anything neatly reasoned, but on your gut. Just food for thought from an old man who’s seen far too much of that kind of life than was good for him. It might simply be me mellowing in my old age, or the fact that I wanted a daughter and never had one, but having spent some time with Clarisse and gotten a chance to think about her, I have arrived at one conclusion.”
“What’s that?”
“I would love to see her really smile at least once.”
Gibson said goodbye and clicked off and stared at the wall as Sam Trask’s words went round and round in her head.
Wanting to see Clarisse smile? After all the shit she’s put me through? No, I’m not there. Yet.
Chapter 67
Later, as Gibson sat there she thought about something.
Parents.
Clarisse had talked about childcare for kids and parents.
Okay, play this out. What if she is Francine and has been taking care of her mother, Geraldine? What if the woman is in a nursing home or an assisted living facility somewhere?
Gibson next thought about the phone call Clarisse had gotten while she had been on the line with her. Clarisse, normally unflappable and in control, seemed close to losing control. This was a long shot, Gibson knew. But everything right now was a long shot, and it wasn’t like she had lots of other leads to run down. She had asked Clarisse point-blank about what Gibson had overheard on the phone call, but the woman had evaded answering directly. However, Gibson could read people. Clarisse was definitely worried about something, about someone.
She went online and put in a fairly broad search request having to do with assisted living facilities and nursing homes, and any problems that had arisen in any of them over the last week or so — like people going missing, as she had heard the other woman say over the phone line, or maybe a death or an accident. She got a flood of stories and posts back on this.
Jesus, are these places dangerous or what?
She narrowed the search as much as she dared and hit the send key.
Ten items came back. That was better. She read through them all. Four pertained to some accident where someone had died. Two were shootings by relatives of their geriatric “loved ones.”
Wonderful.
And the rest were about residents who had walked away or otherwise vanished from their facilities. She checked each one of these thoroughly, but couldn’t draw any conclusions. She recognized none of the names, not that Clarisse would have placed her mother in the facility under the names Geraldine Langhorne or Geraldine Parker.
She put this search aside and was about to go get a cup of tea when an email plunked into her inbox.
It was from Jan Roberts, her contact at the Star-Ledger in Newark. She had finally replied to Gibson’s earlier email.
You have time to talk?
She had left a number, which Gibson immediately called.
“Well this is a blast from the past,” said Roberts in her booming voice that Gibson remembered so clearly. She had met Roberts through her father when she was working a case in Jersey City. Roberts had assisted Gibson in one aspect of the case and had been given an exclusive interview by her as payback, all done anonymously, of course, because of Gibson’s being undercover for the investigation.
“How’s your father?” Roberts asked.
“Ornery as ever,” replied Gibson.
Roberts laughed. “Good, then we know nothing’s wrong with him.”
“How do you like Newark?”
“It’s Jersey and I’m a Jersey girl. Hey, is it true that Harry Langhorne was found dead down your way? You are in Virginia now, right?”
“Yes. He was using the name Dan Pottinger. Someone murdered him.”
“Well, I won’t be crying. I didn’t know the man, but from everything I’ve read about him he was a real creep, working with the mob and all.”
“I also read Samantha Kember’s story on him.”
“She died too young. Rest in peace, Sam. Yeah, I had just started at my first paper when she wrote that story. I actually went back and read it when I heard about Langhorne’s being dead.”
“So was he a pedophile?”
“Nothing was ever proven in court because the guy vanished, but it sure as hell sounded like he was, unless all those girls were lying, which I don’t believe.”
Something had occurred to Gibson earlier and she wanted to run it by Roberts. “I learned from a third party that Langhorne was fingerprinted and a background check run so he could volunteer at, I suppose, a school. I wondered why a mob accountant would do that. But I guess now it makes sense.”
Roberts said, “Seems he wanted to get very close to the source of his sick fantasies.”
Gibson shivered at this thought. “Can you tell me more than was in the story?”
“Like what?”
“Langhorne had kids, a daughter and a son.”
“Wait, and you think, what, he was abusing them, too?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“You think his wife would have allowed that?”
“From what I heard she never stood up to Langhorne. And she apparently didn’t stop him from molesting the other kids.”
“Right, if she knew about it. What was her name again?”
“Geraldine.”
“Hmmm, you sure that’s right?”
“Yeah, that was her name.”
“Oh, right. That’s the name she went by.”
“Hold on, did she have another name? And how would you know?”
“In addition to reading her story again, I dug into Sam’s files for the story. The Star-Ledger never throws anything away.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I thought with Langhorne’s being found murdered there might be a follow-up story in there somewhere. I’m right now pitching it to my editor, in fact.”
“Okay, makes sense.”
“Sam was meticulous in her work and really taught me a lot.”
“I’m sure, but what did you find?” said Gibson impatiently.
“Geraldine was the woman’s middle name. She went by that because she apparently hated her given name. I would have, too, I suppose. It’s not the prettiest.”
“What was her given name?”
“Agnes.”
Gibson glanced at her computer screen. Holy shit.
Among the articles she had found about things going awry recently at assisted living facilities was the story of an Agnes Leland, who apparently disappeared from one in Greenville, South Carolina, right around the time of the call to Clarisse.
Or was it now almost certainly Francine?
Chapter 68
After finishing her call with Jan Roberts, Gibson just stared at the screen for a long time wondering what to do.
She believed she had just received confirmation that Clarisse was none other than Francine Langhorne. And her mother, Agnes Geraldine Langhorne (Leland), had gone missing from an assisted living facility in South Carolina, a facility in which perhaps the daughter had placed her mother. Had someone kidnapped her? Someone who wanted to gain leverage over the daughter? Maybe to ensure that they would get all or part of the treasure? Because it seemed like everyone was motivated by that goal.